Tech CEO scraps unlimited holiday: ‘Bad employees take too much off'
Ryan Breslow, 31, co-founder and chairman of one-click payment company Bolt, spearheaded the initiative as part of his scheme to overhaul traditional working patterns.
But, writing on LinkedIn, Mr Breslow, said: 'It sounds progressive, but it's totally broken. When time off is undefined, the good ones don't take [it]. The bad ones take too much.
'This leads to A-performer burnout. B-performer luxuries. And feelings of unfairness across the board.
'So we're flipping the script: no more confusion. Every Bolter now gets four weeks of paid vacation (yes, the traditional corporate standard), with the opportunity to accrue more with tenure.
'Not optional,' Mr Breslow added. 'We mandate everyone take all four weeks off.'
Mr Breslow's rise in high-tech has been meteoric after founding the company in 2014.
By May 2022, Bolt had 8,000 staff, was valued at $11 billion (£8 billion), and Mr Breslow had become one of the world's youngest self-made billionaires.
He also saw himself as a visionary, developing the 'Conscious Culture Playbook', which ripped up the traditional staff handbook.
Mr Breslow is not the only US employer to offer unlimited paid leave, with the perk having grown in popularity over the last two decades.
By 2023, it was offered by eight per cent of US companies, while workers in other American companies often found that holiday entitlements were far less generous than their counterparts in Europe.
Research has shown that those offered the perk take two to three more days off a year than workers with companies with fixed holiday entitlement.
But there is also evidence that workers can also be reluctant to take advantage of the scheme, fearing that being marked out as a loafer can put their job at risk when companies need to shed staff.
Robert Sweeney, chief executive of technology company Facet, was among the sceptics.
'Unlimited vacation is a scam,' he wrote in a 2019 blog post after his company reverted back to the traditional model.
'Vacation is not really unlimited. If you take too much time off, you will get fired.'
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